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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

Formfiller

Posted 01 February 2013 - 01:57 AM

Formfiller

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Insights from an insider:

Also there's a strange notion in the press that stuff executives say or any inferred statement from a single Microsoft email constitutes an official position by Microsoft. All too often we see executives saying something silly because they don't know or got the wrong end of the stick, or an email pronouncing the death of a core Windows technology gets taken at face value.

A lot of this is a consequence of Microsoft's abandonment of the press; there's certainly a feeling at MS that "haters gonna hate" and that there's no point talking with the press or doing effective communication because it'll end up backfiring, and so people that should be taught to deal with the press aren't, and the press jump or infer too much from misleading scraps of emails because of an information vacuum caused by Microsoft's inability to have a unified press strategy.

First of all, it's 2.26%, according to the graphic they have embedded themselves:

Windows 8 market share is up, having gained 0.58% in January to post an overall market share of 2.36% - this shows marginally slower growth for Windows 8 in January, with the operating system's December market share rising 0.66%.

As I said earlier, let's not forget that many people got shopping coupons or money as Christmas gifts, and some of them bought PCs and laptops for that money in January. And I guess lots of people who got computers as Christmas gifts haven't used them in December at all but powered them on in January as well. Once this post-Christmas effect of January wears wears off, W8 will grow at a much slower pace. The price quadrupling of the W8 upgrade will further slow it down, too.

ciHnoN

Posted 01 February 2013 - 07:06 AM

It is reported that Microsoft has sent an email to DirectX/XNA MVPs which informs them that they are no longer needed because XNA and DirectX are no longer evolving. What does this mean? If you don't need MVPs then presumably you anticipate nothing to support in the future.

According to Promit Roy, a technical lead at Action Equals Reaction Labs and ex-Microsofty (on his personal blog), the email says:

"The XNA/DirectX expertise was created to recognize community leaders who focused on XNA Game Studio and/or DirectX development. Presently the XNA Game Studio is not in active development and DirectX is no longer evolving as a technology. Given the status within each technology, further value and engagement cannot be offered to the MVP community. As a result, effective April 1, 2014 XNA/DirectX will be fully retired from the MVP Award Program."

Probably The truth is that they continue investing on DirectX but they don't want you using it because they want you to go through the WinRT layer for everything, i.e. the Win App Store API.

They are ruining the Windows platform piece by piece.1 February, 2013 07:43

"Presently the XNA Game Studio is not in active development and DirectX is no longer evolving as a technology."

Its very clearly worded, no ambiguiti

...But, recently we've heard too much things from Microsoft that 'doesnt sound right' in the first, but have different level of truth in it, like 'Silverlight is DEAD'(we heard it before SL5 was released), 'Start menu is DEAD', 'XNA is DEAD', 'Desktop is LEGACY', '.NET is deprecated, JavaScript is your futrue', 'No WP7 or CE tablets, Windows (7) is for tablets!' etc etc, we really can't be sure, pretty much anything can happen these days.

This is so so true, I must quote it twice!

The truth is that they continue investing on DirectX but they don’t want you using it because they want you to go through the WinRT layer for everything, i.e. the Win App Store API.

CharlotteTheHarlot

Posted 01 February 2013 - 06:19 PM

Summary: If you are using 32-bit Windows to purchase Windows 8, you will receive 32-bit files regardless of your system capabilities!

Silly me, I thought I was done with that simple chore of downloading Windows 8 for a customer to install later on their Windows XP system. Nope. Not in MicroLand where nothing is easy, or even sensible. You see, and I forgot this last night, that 2GB download was naturally the 32-bit version of Windows 8. I should have remembered that since Vista, any distribution totaling 2GB is not 64-bit. It's my own fault for trusting them to have set up an option-laden upgrade system, after all, they have so many years of practice at it. Nope, they learned nothing.

Well I'm not the only one that walked into this mess. For example, see here to read comments by a lot of ticked off people. Also here. What seems to have happened is that their brilliant "Upgrade Assistant" uses "system sniffing" to decide what to download, incorrectly assuming that the system making the purchase is the one that gets the install. This is similar to the "browser sniffing" they use on many webpages telling you 'This MSKB article pertains to another operating system' as if people will never use a different computer ( which itself is rather funny when you are looking up articles about a FUBAR computer or lost network access or BSOD, where it would be impossible to be using the computer with the problem being researched ). "Sniffing" is plain stupid, be it system, browser, or glue. If you insist on being too clever by half and using "sniffing" you had better make allowances for situations where people are using computers other than the one they are researching about, and offer clear choices to accommodate them. Perhaps it is appropriate. The logic behind this Windows 8 "Upgrade Assistant" pretty much matches the caliber of their new operating system.

Anyway, when you run this ridiculous Windows 8 "Upgrade Assistant" they missed many opportunities to avoid the problem. Many opportunities. I collected and annotated six different screens where they could have used some disambiguation ( and there are even more opportunities ). Have a look here at this graphic which hopefully might help some others ...

Spoiler

Now where this gets silly is in the recommended and suggested solutions from Microsoft, the MVP volunteers, and the larger tech community. It is a real mess. The above two linked threads have these ideas and links to others offsite.

Get a refund. Screw it.

Buy the DVD with both the 32-bit and 64-bit installers.

Install 64-bit Windows on your current computer and then download it again ( Wait what? You want to upgrade 32-bit XP to 64-bit Windows 8 so you must first get a 64-bit something else! )

Go to another computer running a Windows 64-bit version and do it again. ( Note my previous post, if you are on WinXP64 you likely still will need to collect the files! ).

Borrow a 64-bit install from someone else ( Questionable )

Download a pure MSDN/Technet 64-bit installer image ( Illegal! )

Find a cracked torrent ( Illegal! )

You should note that in reality we are no further along than we were since Activation first appeared around Office XP and Windows XP. One of the so-called advantages of this was said to be that we were now purchasing a license or serial number or activation code, not media. The media would now be independent of the license and therefore be less criminal to distribute the files. Well this never came to fruition, now did it? We got all the negatives of activation, and none of the positives of easy-to-find distribution media. Microsoft still makes a fuss about 3rd parties hosting service packs and meaningless updates, let alone entire Windows install discs. This is practically criminal what they have done to the average consumer who does not have a TechNet subscription ( which itself is technically only for educational and testing purposes, using it to reinstall a legal Windows installation at some business or a random customers' home is at a best gray area, but likely a violation ). Frankly, this is one of the worst things they have ever done and if you ask me deserves class action status. Couple this with the OEM scam where they do not normally distribute any media, only a recovery partition ( which for some reason is unavailable when a HDD dies! ) it is clear that Microsoft is operating a scam best described as Planned Obsolescence. Their thinking is 'If a million people need to reinstall Windows, some percentage of them will fail to locate legal media and just give up and buy a new system or Windows retail'. Unfortunately, some of them are saying screw you and going elsewhere. Speculation or not, they should be crushed in court for this evil plan.

In this particular case my client doesn't really care now and will use the 32-bit installer because their system is less than 4GB RAM and isn't sure if there are 64-bit drivers for the other stuff they have anyway. Whatever. It still sucks that they get away with this nonsense.

P.S. So many people on the threads about this issue have no idea what it means to have a 64-bit system. Many are basing their decision solely on what bit-size Windows is installed and is reported from Control Panel > System. This is NOT what 64-bit means. 64-bit is processor capability, you need to look up your CPU at Intel or AMD and look for something like: x64 Support?. If the processor runs the x64 extensions to x86 then you have a 64-bit system ( barring some obscure BIOS bug that fails to enable it ). Here is what is important, and something Microsoft failed to allow for in their ridiculous Windows 8 "Upgrade Assistant" ... there are many systems out there runnning 32-bit Windows because the thing shipped with 2GB RAM. End Result? Lots of XP and Vista laptops will wind up with Windows 8 32-bit because of the "Upgrade Assistant".

JorgeA

Posted 01 February 2013 - 06:38 PM

A disconcerting title and article. The readers' comments are MUCH better:

There seems to be a huge segment that wasn't addressed here. Windows 7 and its previous versions will be around a long time, at least 10 years. To slap an intrusive interface on top of that system won't fly with countless users and businesses. It simply reduces productivity in the short term with its steep learning curve and long term by adding more steps to create content. Laptops and desktops are content creators. Smaller machines are content consumers, toys in other words. Microsoft, give us back a straight path to the system where REAL work is done.

I certainly hope that Microsoft will not become the arrogant, we should decide what you should do, we know what's best for you, you're holding it wrong, type of companies that Apple and Google are.

If I want Apple or Google I'll buy their stuff!

I want Microsoft to be Microsoft or I won't buy their stuff! (like Win8)

Can anyone say death spiral coming soon!!!!!!!!!

And then there is the obligatory shill offering vacuous (when not ludicrous) comments...

I really like W8, there are so many nice interface features and it's so much faster than it's predecessors. At one point I was going to drop back to W7 when another developer told me to take the time to really see what's going on and appreciate things like enhanced execution speed, better multitasking and enhancement of threading features.

(emphasis added)

...well answered by a subsequent reader:

I have a tablet. I have a desktop. I have a notebook. I have a laptop. I use all of them, some more, others less. The tablet and notebook are for play, the rest are work. The minimal performance differences available from Win8 (as opposed to Win 7) are minimal from a user point of view. The improvement in performance is virtually irrelevant to anything I really do. Gaining a couple of seconds in boot up time? Ask me if I care? I LIKE the desktop and I like Win7. I don't want a tabletized OS. Keep Win 8, but remember that those of us who WORK don't USE TABLETS TO DO IT. We understand, as apparently you don't, the difference between play and productivity. Apple gets it: the OS for their tablet ISN'T the same as for their working machines. Why is MS finding it so hard to see the difference? Hello out there! The real world exists and some of us live in it.

He is of course defending the 5x price increase, curiously saying it is now the same as Windows 7.

Windows 8 (Core) Upgrade: $119.99

Windows 8 Pro Upgrade: $199.99

Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade: $119.99

Windows 7 Professional Upgrade: $199.99

It’s identical.

Or is it? Did you forget something Paul? Perhaps something that was announced at the Official Destroying Windows Blog. You covered it yourself Paul, even disagreeing with Microsoft ( for once ) in Windows 8, DVD Playback, Media Center, and You. Yes, you forgot about Microsoft cutting costs by removing MPEG decoding and other "costs" from Windows, each having to shoulder the burden if they want it. It sure looks to me that your math clearly shows them "shouldering the burden" anyway, except no Media Center. Clearly the crappy new Windows costs at least $9.99 more than the equivalent version of Windows 7.

As many "cynical" people said at the time, Microsoft clearly cut costs by removing the DVD playback, and simply pocketed it.

"In the process of building a robust platform, we’ve also evaluated which in-box media playback experiences we want to provide. The media landscape has changed quite significantly since the release of Windows 7. Our telemetry data and user research shows us that the vast majority of video consumption on the PC and other mobile devices is coming from online sources such as YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, or any of the other myriad of online and downloadable video services available. In fact, consumption of movies online in the United States will surpass physical video in 2012, according to this recent IHS Screen Digest research.

On the PC, these online sources are growing much faster than DVD & broadcast TV consumption, which are in sharp decline (no matter how you measure—unique users, minutes, percentage of sources, etc.). Globally, DVD sales have declined significantly year over year and Blu-ray on PCs is losing momentum as well. Watching broadcast TV on PCs, while incredibly important for some of you, has also declined steadily. These traditional media playback scenarios, optical media and broadcast TV, require a specialized set of decoders (and hardware) that cost a significant amount in royalties. With these decoders built into most Windows 7 editions, the industry has faced those costs broadly, regardless of whether or not a given device includes an optical drive or TV tuner.

Our partners have shared clear concerns over the costs associated with codec licensing for traditional media playback, especially as Windows 8 enables an unprecedented variety of form factors. Windows has addressed these concerns in the past by limiting availability of these experiences to specialized “media” or “premium” editions. At the same time, we also heard clear feedback from customers and partners that led to our much simplified Windows 8 editions lineup.

Given the changing landscape, the cost of decoder licensing, and the importance of a straight forward edition plan, we’ve decided to make Windows Media Center available to Windows 8 customers via the Add Features to Windows 8 control panel (formerly known as Windows Anytime Upgrade). This ensures that customers who are interested in Media Center have a convenient way to get it. Windows Media Player will continue to be available in all editions, but without DVD playback support. For optical discs playback on new Windows 8 devices, we are going to rely on the many quality solutions on the market, which provide great experiences for both DVD and Blu-ray."

More about that significant case with the creepy possibly-biased jury foreman and the Apple-loving judge. The feeling is that she made this compromise ruling: no new trial ( pro-Apple ), no increased damages ( pro-Samsung ), just to kick it upstairs to the appeals court, or, because she is fed up with the whole thing. It will be interesting because if it goes through without a new trial, a new low precedent will be set for behavior in court. It is Samsung has the upper-hand now because they can afford the fine, and already jacked up prices on parts supplied to Apple ( hehe ). If the Judge did triple the damages, it would only result in triple cost to Apple in parts!

CharlotteTheHarlot

Posted 01 February 2013 - 08:21 PM

I'm not sure what those children are going on about. Oh wait, I see they are talking about January as a whole. I have the last two charts from NeoWin ( 12 days apart ), so they must be skipping that one and going back to December. Well let's just see the last two they posted ...

... 2013-01-20

... 2013-02-01

It doesn't look good at all for them in the past week and a half. Just to be sure I whipped up a quick and dirty spreadsheet, typing the numbers in by hand ...

It looks like Windows 8 is down Windows XP is up. The change is small though, and only a 12 day trend.

Summary: measuring from December Windows 8 is slightly up, measuring from 12 days ago ( the last two charts at NeoWin ) it is slightly down.

Does anyone have a source for the "start" period chart ( December? ) that NeoWin is now using?

ADDED: Naturally with the increasing share of Windows XP ( in both trend periods ) lots of the MetroTards take shots at it. ( oh I hope it cracks 40% again ) Typical spewing:

That's not the issue surrounding XP though. Companies/people sat on their asses while Vista rolled out, and continued to do so after 7 rolled out, until they realized, their laziness put them behind, and for some reason are blaming Microsoft for it. I still hear BS about stuff not being compatible, which is just absurd at this moment as Vista was released 7 years ago. If you haven't taken the time by this point to understand the post-XP things and doings, then you have no right to complain.

Sorry MicroZealot. Windows XP users are not complaining about anything. Only obsessive compulsive MetroTards are complaining, and they are complaining about Windows XP for some odd reason as if it impacts their narcissistic little world. ( Sent from an XP system running as administrator without any antivirus and without Windows updates for several years. By all means keep updating, patching and virus-checking your little Playskool Windows 8 non-administrator system. It has to be good for something besides Angry Birds. )

JorgeA

Posted 01 February 2013 - 11:31 PM

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I'm not sure what those children are going on about. Oh wait, I see they are talking about January as a whole. I have the last two charts from NeoWin ( 12 days apart ), so they must be skipping that one and going back to December. Well let's just see the last two they posted ...

If we can believe the reports, I note that, according to Neowin's pie charts (and the spreadsheet), Vista usage went up by as much as (and more than) Windows 8 went down. Win8 ugliness is driving people to beautiful Vista!!!

CharlotteTheHarlot

Posted 02 February 2013 - 01:18 AM

So MS finally increased the price to $199, epic fail. Glad I bought it when it was $40. I don't see how this will increase sales and further rate usage though.

Ditto.

Rather than drive new computer sales, the Windows 8 price increase will probably drive eBay auctions.

So far there are a few. Some show retail in box and some mention digital, but I see no clear way to filter them at the moment. One is listed as $31.99 with no bids and 2 days left. Hmmm, is it possible that buying it low at $39 before the increase to $199 still isn't a sure bet. Man, that would be telling if it can't even sell at eBay above the sale price.

The other problem is the huge mess of SKU choices. Even reading through Thurrott's detailed explanation is still clear as mud to me, I can imagine what it's like for the non-Techie and n00b.

P.S. Anyone notice the crazy changes to Google images? Where are all the choices for alternate sizes?

TheBigBang

Posted 02 February 2013 - 12:56 PM

So MS finally increased the price to $199, epic fail. Glad I bought it when it was $40. I don't see how this will increase sales and further rate usage though.

Ditto.

Rather than drive new computer sales, the Windows 8 price increase will probably drive eBay auctions.

So far there are a few. Some show retail in box and some mention digital, but I see no clear way to filter them at the moment. One is listed as $31.99 with no bids and 2 days left. Hmmm, is it possible that buying it low at $39 before the increase to $199 still isn't a sure bet. Man, that would be telling if it can't even sell at eBay above the sale price.

The other problem is the huge mess of SKU choices. Even reading through Thurrott's detailed explanation is still clear as mud to me, I can imagine what it's like for the non-Techie and n00b.

P.S. Anyone notice the crazy changes to Google images? Where are all the choices for alternate sizes?

Artificial tug a price is nothing but yet another upsy daisy, forged by M$ HQ.

It is a subject, real security vs. perceived security that deserves a lot more notice IMHO, judging by the hyperbole I see in the threads from MetroTards accusing Windows XP and Win9x users of irresponsibly destroying the security of the world because they receive no real updates or mainline "support" by clinging to an "obsolete" operating system. As if Microsoft "supports" anybody in the first place ( they do not, the worldwide Tech community supports Microsoft and props it up, it would collapse without the millions of Techies working for peanuts fixing countless Windows and other problems ). As mentioned in those posts, I am not careless and do not evangelize to others to do it in this "manual" fashion. But there is more than one way to skin a cat besides letting Microsoft and 3rd parties take over your system. My own personal reasoning just is a product of longtime dis-satisfaction with the status quo, the lack of logic and efficiency and common sense over the years from Microsoft and others that offer help, usually for a price. It sure looks a lot like a Sopranos protection racket or outright extortion sometimes.

Windows Update? Over the years I've watched countless theoretical exploits ( buffer overflows, etc ) get fixed and the same files getting patched over and over ( MSHTML.DLL, etc ) and came to the conclusion that there is a large industry simply trying to convince us they are busy protecting us by doing "something" which amounts to the placebo effect much of the time. There are problems no doubt, but most cannot be solved under the hood because the user himself is the weak link, and phishing through social engineering checkmates everything else, regardless of how many times you change the locks on the doors. Windows Updating has in most cases become busy "make-work", an end in of itself. Sure, read all the scary description excerpts of the "critical" updates ( "this will patch a vulnerability that may allow ..." ) and the user is convinced Microsoft is busy "supporting" their system, keeping it safe and reliable. In my opinion an ever-changing system code-base does not fit that literal definition. Add to that the collateral breakage that often occurs from patching this giant Windows Rube Goldberg machine and I lose interest in this plan. You can literally reinstall an original RTM disc and go on your merry way in most cases, save for some key improvements here and there like LBA large HDD ( WinXP Sp1 ) and these kinds of updates. But not the ceaseless patching and re-patching of the same files and ActiveX registry keys and certificates from a cottage industry of "researchers" that seem to exist only to keep WU busy. I might take them seriously if every patch and update that was released got rolled up into a master-patcher application, totally version independent ( including old OS versions! ), and was always available for download from a static URL for anybody. It should run and locate all deviations from the "norm" and offer options to repair them. If they were serious about security and if it actually mattered, this would have been done long ago. One single file to download periodically and execute. Not hundreds of patches with prerequisites and reboots and failures.

Realtime AV? I always felt that the realtime antivirus medicine was worse than the disease since I can just pop the HDD out, stick it into another computer, run on-demand scanning and manually fix anything broken. The realtime AV also can actually prevent repairs even after it allowed the very malware into the system in the first place. In practice, most of them are "busy" applications with some utilizing up to 10 tasks and services all the time. They enjoy using Microsoft's patented planned obsolescence with constantly changing engines and upgrades and the commercial ones then threaten to not protect you if you don't pay. I always despised the fact that the AV industry never agreed on a common shared detection definition database. Crowd sourcing has proved itself far superior to incremental selective knowledge stores, and this is a topic that cries out for it. Let them keep their proprietary engine, runtime and GUI designs but not the core database. The divergence in detection signature data with no way for any user to determine which AV company has a better dataset is a bridge too far IMHO. And then we have the intolerable realtime attack by the white-hat AV software on the user when they click on a folder in Explorer or insert removable media, grabbing huge CPU and disk I/O scanning every file where you just browsed or on an inserted flashdrive, and then proceeds to delete or quarantine without so much as a prompt. That was the last straw for me after having carefully crafted flashdrives full of utilities raped and pillaged by the friendly AV company. Ironically, much of the time it is simply UPX or similar packed files that are removed ( Nirsoft, you gotta drop UPX! ). None of the AV packages have expert mode, only a few have a gaming mode, and fewer still have an easy way to terminate realtime scanning. None of these features are easily available ( single click ) from the tray icon. So just like Windows 8 the AV software evolved solely for the common denominator, the careless, inept, rookie user that needs protection from himself, and even then it still does not work because these types of users will gleefully click on a message that offers to double their computer speed for free.

So I took this particular computer I inherited and set about calling Microsoft's and the security industry's and the paranoid fanboy's bluffs. It gets murdered by me in day-to-day testing of unmentionable programs and applications and visiting websites that Google and Bing warn about and sometimes don't even list. It remains stable, mostly frozen in time a little after SP3 when the owner, a good friend passed away ( I keep this running as a personal tribute ). Looking at Nirsoft WinUpdatesList I see that a few recent ones got executed, not from Windows Update ( which has been disabled for years ), but from some program installers ( Visual Studio, Corel, Adobe, etc ) that carry along Windows patches. Also I will run ad hoc updates as needed for things like C runtime libraries. The reason for stability IMHO is that I am not granting Microsoft carte blanche permission to go on a file changing rampage through Windows Update every morning at 3am. To tell the truth, things might be still be fine even if I did run WU, because I would stay right on top of it noting any changes to manually rollback from should they cause problems. But the main point is that being a slave to WU and Microsoft itself is just silly. You can get away with a complete reinstall to RTM or SP1 of any operating system and as long as you are careful, you'll walk away just fine.

Having said that, I do not do this for clients. They get the full approved treatment, realtime antivirus ( MSE ) and MBAM for on-demand. This covers my butt when they click on Nigerian email links to collect their princely inheritance and MSIE dutifully downloads trojans while MSE lets it happen. If they come back loaded with malware, I pop out the drive and fix it so they can take it home and do it all over again.

CharlotteTheHarlot

Posted 02 February 2013 - 04:41 PM

The app's description says that with this app, Windows 8 and Windows RT PC owners can use it to access and even edit shared files on servers that are running Windows Server 2012 Essentials. It offers support for searching for documents on both your Windows 8/RT PC and the server's shared folders. It will even allow users to access recently opened filed on the server even if the app is not connected to the server at that time.

There are no words. Absolutely none ... at ... all. Click on the spoiler to see for yourself ...

And they show a graphic that breaks down the operating system used by Steam clients. I'm not sure this really means what they want it to mean.

First of all this is only gamers, and only gamers specifically using Steam. I don't know about anyone else, but while there are some good games and some hardcore gamers on Steam ( and I do read Maximum PC and PC Gamer and others ), it is sill a small subset of all gaming, and more importantly it has a lot of fluff available, almost as much as the Microsoft Store, or Flash and Java game websites. Steam has all types of gamers, the result should be skewed toward the average user in the same way a poll of system administrators would expect to be skewed away from the average user. Steam has many average users because it is by design a simple drop-in solution for those that don't tweak and drive themselves mad eeking every framerate out of their games. To summarize, it is not that Steam shows gamer adoption of the crappy new Windows 8 , it actually shows adoption by the average gamer - the normal people, just as expected.

Secondly, one could make the argument that people using Windows 8 are using Steam to get away from it and it's Playskool Metro and the pathetic Microsoft Store with apps consisting of canned webpages. One might also argue that Steam users on Windows 8 are there for the under-the-hood improvements such as miniscule speedups in rebooting and some other areas, things that nobody complained about in the first place. So, in this instance, citing Steam user adoption of the crappy new Windows would seem to be going against their point. They want the under-the-hood improvements without having to look at the ReTard interface. Once they are in Steam, they are doing exactly that.

Finally, even these numbers are suspect since it is a voluntary poll. Voluntary! See: Steam Hardware & Software Survey: January 2013: "Steam conducts a monthly survey to collect data about what kinds of computer hardware and software our customers are using. Participation in the survey is optional, and anonymous. The information gathered is incredibly helpful to us as we make decisions about what kinds of technology investments to make and products to offer." People that are most computer savvy and concerned with security and anonymity do not respond to these things in the same way they do not allow telemetry data back to Microsoft ( talking to you Sinofsky, Julie, Jensen, etc ). I'm not saying this data is bogus, but it should come close to mirroring the Microsoft data that led to the MetroTard decision-making rationalizing removal of the Start Menu. What would be interesting is just how fast the Windows Store or Start Screen would be removed for lack of interest if there was an automatic response to this kind of telemetry.

CharlotteTheHarlot

Posted 02 February 2013 - 05:43 PM

Recall that the price just went from $39.99 to $199.99. Anyone could buy a number of these licenses and resell them later, presumably for some serious profit, right? I mean, if there ever was such a thing as a "sure thing" this would be it, right? Let's take a look. ...

Frankly I'm not sure what to make of this at all. I am completely surprised. This is my surprised face. You would think that Paul Thurrott and Ed Bott and a few hundred NeoWinians would be crawling all over each other to snap up these deals.

In the former case you actually had to take a risk because you had no idea what the stock would be selling for weeks and months later.In the latter case investors knew everything in order to make a profit. Everything!

I think I will need to see some Thurrott or NeoWhiner explanations in order to properly understand this.

TheBigBang

Posted 03 February 2013 - 11:26 AM

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Stalking probs throughout a system,like everyday,became nauseous
As far as I know, RFA (RegistryFirstAid) is a crisp in registry-tweaking, tho..
Yesteryears, including w7, RFA obeyed any reg. task, without a complain..
When Ive tried the same in a W8, all Metro apps stops working..omg..only sys.restore brings all stuff in a previous state.
Actually, Ive applied RFA's default trigger tweaking, regardless, thats screwed up some Metro related keys in a reg.base.

Any hint on appropriate reg. tweaking app for a w8 ?

btw, Ive just saw a thread about a _win8 reg tweak_..so mod. please, move it to there.

jaclaz

Posted 03 February 2013 - 11:45 AM

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About pricing, I never managed to understand marketing strategies, but this one sounds even more "queer" than usual.

If you have something that can be placed on the market (and be on average "competitive" against other similar product) for (say) US$ 100.00, the first thing the good marketing guys do is to price it at 99.99 (and there is a whole literature about how moronic are morons that "like" x.99 prices over the same y.00 same price), see:http://en.wikipedia....logical_pricingThis is stupid, but seemingly all over the world .Next step is (as said earlier) "bundling", basically you add to the product a number of other things that either have no or little costs or actual use or that are not actually much used but that are perceived as "added" value to "justify" the price.I will dare to say that in computing this is now the 64 bit Operating System (hey, my processor has more bits than yours!).Now, since you have all those added bits you must have more RAM to use them, right? And we nicely give you some more RAM that you wouldn't otherwise need for a very fair price.Then come the "promotions", such as "introductory offers".So you have this US$ 100.00 valued on the market product that you price 99.99 with an introductory offer of (still say) 20% discount and place it on the market at 79.99 instead of the "regular" price of 99.99.Supposing that this is actually (or it is soon to become) a hot selling item, the marketing guru's will be LIMITED but the actual to apply this introductory offer to ONLY a limited amount of items.This is logical, you have some sound calculations that to cover development, manufacturing, advertising, shipment, etc. costs you have to sell, say 1,000,000 units at 100.00, i.e. get 100,000,000.Then you know that to create interest, make a self-referring mass, etc, you can shorten the time by selling 10% of those at a 20% discount.In the end the actual discount (in the sense of reduced income) is 2% or 10% of 20%.When you use (as opposed to the limited quantity) a deadline such as 31st of January this starts to be "less sound", but on "real" items you can use it all the same, because you do know how many items will be on the market as you know how many of them you will produce and send to the shops by that time, so it is almost the same as setting a limit on the number of items.But here we have something a little bit different.The difference between the "introductory offer" and the "standard retail price" is not the "logical" 10%, 20% or even 30%.

You are going to tell your customers (or potential ones), that they can have something (Windows 8 Pro upgrade) now for 39.99 but soon they will only be able to get it for 199.99.1-(39.99/199.99)=0.80 or 80% discount.

Then, you sell LESS THAN EXPECTED items at the heavily discounted price BUT keep the (senseless) deadline the same.

This turns apparently in a saving (IF you can sell anyway enough of the stuff at the full price).

Here we have something even worse, seemingly a part of the items you sold at the discounted price were acquired to be re-sold at the time the offer will end.

I.e., besides the competition with other OS, you have managed to create an "internal" competition, allowing people to sell the same product but to a much lower price than the one you are selling (or wishing to sell) it at.

Posted 03 February 2013 - 03:15 PM

Hmmm, gotta say, I didn't see this coming. Actually a great deal for those that got suckered into buying a non-x86 toy tablet. Could this mean that their latest move into ARM is being aborted like many other Microsoft projects? Probably not. They have written OS's for non-x86 platforms, including ARM for decades now. If I had to guess it would be that they want out of the hardware side of ARM only, but will continue to make "Windows" for it. That is, if they can find any OEMs willing to make the hardware and so far there are only two if I recall. Maybe this has something to do with the Dell deal that will be finalized in a few days?

Another taste of AI ( Artificial Intelligence ). I wish they would first perfect all the current attempts before teasing us with new ones ( voice input still very rough, language translators laughable, computer voice output from text is simply horrific and robotic ). So this thing will make predictions after scanning historical headlines huh? You think they will scan the headlines of the past two years concerning Windows? How about headlines about Ballmer? How about the Wall Street headlines about Microsoft? In the interest of the survival of Windows and Microsoft itself, I offer ... some Bing headlines they could examine ... some Google headlines they could examine ... now get to work and learn something!

They have a picture up there at NeoWin showing what I believe is the pen attached to the side of this tablet, instead of stored internally. Is this possible? They could not make the thing a half-inch wider to accommodate an internal hole so that the pen could pop-in and pop-out? Googling around I found this site (which frankly does a better job than Microsoft with explanations and photos ) and they have this picture ...

CharlotteTheHarlot

Posted 03 February 2013 - 05:29 PM

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Formfiller ... forgot to mention this earlier, but NeoWin loves to change URLs on the images a few days after publishing a story. Note the blank box. They may even be blocking outside links to the photos and possibly preventing sites like this one access. Whatever, it's their loss.

You can however copy them to a 3rd party host ( sever-to-server ) with sites like imgur, which is pretty darn good. So is PhotoBucket but I read something about it not being available here on this forum to all members, or something like that.

Shane

Posted 03 February 2013 - 08:12 PM

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Given Windows 8 2 cracks of the whip now and still can't get it to work properly. First time around bad_pool_header BSOD's whenever using Vlite to master a Vista image for a client, second time around constant malfunctions of my USB devices. Despite the insistence of Hawkman from Neowin (Who is essentially more of a smug and arrogant know it all than a real tech enthusiast) that my USB filter drivers were not installed, I couldn't find them being offered for my board or my Renesas USB chipsets. Nor have I ever had to install them in Windows 7, even through Windows update. I also had episodes where Media Center would just randomly stop responding to my remote inputs. The update was only £14.99 but I still feel like I wasted my money. It's going to be a long while before I try using Windows 8 again, it's staggering that it would work so badly on a computer I built at the end of 2011

JorgeA

Posted 03 February 2013 - 10:13 PM

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Stalking probs throughout a system,like everyday,became nauseous As far as I know, RFA (RegistryFirstAid) is a crisp in registry-tweaking, tho.. Yesteryears, including w7, RFA obeyed any reg. task, without a complain..When Ive tried the same in a W8, all Metro apps stops working..omg..only sys.restore brings all stuff in a previous state.Actually, Ive applied RFA's default trigger tweaking, regardless, thats screwed up some Metro related keys in a reg.base.

Despite what I've been told by PC store techs about how the Win8 desktop is "just like 7," and that Metro is simply built "on top of it," obviously it is not. A program (like Registry First Aid) that you used fine in 7, seems to screw up 8.

Hmm, if RFA stops all Metro apps from working... ...then maybe whatever they do could serve as the foundation for a Metro killer.

... which at face value imparts the impression that he is once again suggesting improvements. Indeed, the subtitle actually says: "If only Surface with Windows 8 Pro had launched first....", and he writes a few paragraphs using an alternate timeline which he believes would have changed the reception of Surface and Windows 8 itself. Clearly he is coming to terms with the painful fact that he called it all wrong. But there is something he still hasn't wrapped his mind around. He proves this by reverting to form, cheerleading for the death of "Windows" once again ...

Surface with Windows RT represents a future in which the Windows desktop is first deprecated and then removed, where Windows itself settles firmly and solely into the Metro mobile environment. To desktop PC adherents, this is a dystopian future, a hardline approach to ongoing industry trends. But if Microsoft is correct, and I think it is, this is the future. The problem, of course, is that it is the future, not the present. We don’t live in the future.

Surface with Windows RT is indeed a no compromises peek at the future of Windows. It offers a vestigial desktop environment only because it has to, because Microsoft didn’t have time to completely replace every single desktop utility with Metro equivalents, and because Office, today, runs almost solely in the desktop. This very rigid and inflexible system is not ideal for almost any users today because it is basically not Windows, not today. That is, it doesn’t benefit from almost any of the best reasons people choose Windows today.

That will change, assuming Microsoft's vision for the future of Windows pans out and customers accept and embrace Metro.

First we need to completely understand his position, which is easy because he has spoken of it on quite a few occasions. "Windows" must die, Microsoft will replace it with an "ecosystem" of apps written in RT, which are little more than canned webpages. The previous paradigm of the x86 universe had it completely wrong. Private software developers who directly marketed their wares directly to the public without going through Microsoft approval and without giving them a cut were scabs and an abomination. Windows software that accessed the nearly limitless capabilities of the hardware through an infinite selection of authoring tools, programming languages and rich APIs were incorrect and unfair because they bypassed the equalized playing field of a platform limited to web-like HTML+CSS. Paul Thurrott envisions returning to the equivalent of the early days with only BASIC, which was so limited it immediately led to DOS and Windows tools using C and higher level development environments as well as major additions to hardware capabilities with ever-growing CPU features, video modes added to display adapters, an exponentially advancing platform that allows a programmer the ability to create almost anything they could dream of. But they were all wrong. An alternate route should have been taken in 1980, an alternate platform should have been used. Something a little more RISCy like maybe staying on 8080, or 8008 or 4004, or maybe just jumping to Motorola 68xxx or earlier, or any of a number of RISC chips. Oh wait, don't we still have RISC chips these days? Of course we do. ARM has been around forever, so has Alpha and MIPS and SPARC and PPC. And guess what? Microsoft has already been targeting most of them all along, with Windows. So what is it that Paul is really demanding? Why this apparent love for alternate platforms? He sounds like an Apple fanboy in some ways, "hey, x86 sucks, you need Power PC" ( just replace "Power PC" with any fanboy platform of choice ).

In reality, what he is demanding is that Microsoft do exactly what I first suspected. Convert the vast, wild and untamed x86 universe into Microsoft's private farm for sowing and harvesting at will. That x86 universe is a huge target of opportunity that they simply cannot resist. The Plan? They want to first train these billions of x86 users into accepting Metro and Windows 8 by forcing it down their throats through the OEM back-channel and via a billion dollar propaganda campaign. Presumably they will flock like mindless zombies into the store demanding even more Metro and Windows 8 on their cellphones and tablets and maybe TV sets later. Quite the cynical and evil plan in my opinion. This x86 universe is not Microsoft's private pickings, most of these people didn't voluntarily walk in and demand Windows. It is pretty much criminal in the monopolist sense since it would be the equivalent of John Rockefeller getting millions of customers using his oil, gasoline and kerosene for many years and then suddenly switching to natural gas and demanding they buy new cars, furnaces and lights to accommodate it. It's not a perfect analogy for several reasons, most importantly the scale is off, way off. Rockefeller never came close to having billions of victims, he settled for mere millions. Ironically though, his monopoly did in fact exactly match Microsoft's 90+% monopoly of all available customers. Microsoft is presently several orders of magnitude greater in monopolized victims than Standard Oil or any of the railroad and banking barons of the past. Ironically, the small downward trend of Microsoft's monopoly in recent years is exactly what has them panicked in the first place. They see a few points lost to competitors and immediately make moves to lurch deeper into the monopolist mentality. That lurch leads to this plan to get those billions of x86 Windows users onto the locked-down Metro reservation where Microsoft is the gatekeeper to everything and takes a Soprano cut on apps whether they write them or not. It really is a pathetic but expected evolution of the iOS universe with iTunes and the Apple store, completely born out of one of the Seven Deadly Sins: jealousy. ( Wikipedia lists them as Lust Gluttony Greed Sloth Wrath Envy Pride, so Microsoft clearly has several of them covered ).

Consider something else: this notion that "Windows" must and will be replaced by Metro. "Windows" as it stands is a platform, software written for "Windows" runs on "Windows" ( except in the many cases where Microsoft has deliberately employed planned obsolescence causing programs not to run without using a different version of Windows ). The replacement that Microsoft and Thurrott and Bott endorse is essentially webpages. This is sadly ironic since the web was scoffed at by Microsoft at first, nearly everyone else got there ahead of them, and they needed to play dirty to catch up. When other attempts at web-style platform-independent canned apps came along ( Java ) they fought it like mad, playing dirty again. All kinds of spin-off platform subsets and frameworks with lock-ins have popped up and even .NET falls into this arena. The question is, why would anyone go along with the late-comer Microsoft, in what they say this time? Especially when we know there are no technological advantages to Metro and Microsoft-Store lock-in. Quite the opposite. It is a neutered version of the vast array of possibilities available to today's creative programmer. The best you can ever accomplish is a fancy webpage that looks exactly like what would be expected if you handed an elementary school class the assignment to write a homepage for a fictitious coffee company. The entire reason behind this naked power-grab is cynical. The lock-in is all about control, and nothing more. It is about Microsoft becoming the firmware on your computer, standing between you and the hardware, demanding payment at every possible step. A time will come when they will meter the email and all web-access as well as their store. Instead of an ISP, they dream of becoming the CSP, computer service provider. The ultimate toll-booth collector.

The biggest tell in his writings is when Thurrott uses phrases like: "... a hardline approach to ongoing industry trends". This pretty much underlines the root cause of Paul Thurrott's, Ed Bott's, and Microsoft's misunderstanding. What we see is rapid deployment ( and inevitable saturation ) of various small form factors of computer size. Essentially every possible size smaller than the desktop box with its 17" to 24" screen will become available and be sold in short order. What they see, or actually, what they believe they see is that the desktop is being replaced by this trend. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, some will be completely replaced by people that never needed a workstation in the first place. Others will merely supplement their setup with various convenient form factors to match their needs. Still others will avoid portable devices altogether. The trend of small devices will no more replace large devices than cars will replace trucks. Imagine if in the late 1970's when there was an invasion of small death-trap form factor automobiles the car companies were to close down the lines producing sedans, limos, pickups, box trucks, school buses, and tractor trailers, from following an incorrectly perceived trend. What they actually did was scale down to match demand, not shutdown which is exactly what Thurrott thinking leads to. The analogy can be better shaped by imagining that the car companies not only shutdown the previous successful lines and produced only Datsun B210 and Vega sized crapmobiles, but they also modified and marketed them for long haul shipping and school buses. Think square pegs and round holes. We don't throw out all the old tools we have when we get a new set of box-end wrenches or screwdrivers. In the real world we use the right tool for the job. And we keep the old ones too.

Now if Microsoft is fed up with the workstation operating system business, and being completely overwhelmed with Apple-envy decided to narrowly focus on dumb-terminals for MetroTards, well, that would be another thing entirely. But I don't hear this from Microsoft, or their propaganda task force of Thurrott, Bott and numerous MicroZealots. If this is what they decide, they owe it to billions of people to come clean and state it outright, not drop a surprise atomic bomb on the world later. And not do it sneakily by attempting to convert and absorb this wide audience into their Orwellian Animal MetroFarm. This is where the moral, ethical, and legal issues collide. They have a unique monopoly position, and they have great power, but they also have a greater responsibility. They chose to supply the operating system that enables a billion computers to operate. The next step they take must be moral, ethical, and legal. Manipulating and drafting these users into their "ecosystem" for their self-serving purposes is none of those things. This is precisely where the MicroZealots cross the line because they fully believe it is moral, ethical, and legal for Microsoft to do this and more. This is why there is such a great divide and such controversy and argument. On the one hand we are criticizing them for abusing their near complete monopoly, on the other hand the MicroZealots are cheer-leading and demanding even more.

What should happen? In a perfect world Microsoft would have been broken up long ago ( and I was among those that didn't think so ) with the operating system division sent a million miles away from everyone else. They produce something allegedly for the benefit of all developers, not just Microsoft software, so having them under the same roof was asking for trouble. It is kind of like Standard Oil getting in bed with the railroads creating a monopoly that controlled everything. It is probably too late now considering some of the people we have seen pass through the ranks of the operating system division like Sinofsky, so they may be too corrupted anyway. An amicable solution would let them go on pursuing their Metro Madness and their quest to copy Apple but having them release the x86 Windows source code and all related patents to the public. Not a perfect scenario considering how disorganized GPL can be but better than what we will have if things continue as they are. That would be a hugely beneficial move to the billion plus users out there, and obviously it would be moral, ethical, and legal. However, even though it would clearly neutralize and blunt any accusation of abusing their monopoly, I have little faith that Microsoft is ethical or moral enough to even consider such a step. Then again, if you consider the solutions actually applied in the past to Rockefeller and others there is some possibility of the Feds stepping in and forcing them to do it anyway. As I am fond of saying lately, one can still dream.